1 Million Points for Anyone in Our Community…

Just tell them to send me an email with their first and last name and desired user name to LinkedMusicians at Gmail dot c@m

old Joad wrote:

I’ve been PMing Cake with this message:
You might already know this but PavlovsCat , AKA Peter, and cclarry, from the Cakewalk Forum are building a new community called LinkedMusicians and would love for you to be a part of it.
send an e-mail with your
DESIRED USERNAME
FIRST AND LAST NAME (it’s okay to use an alias last name if you’re uncomfortable using your real one)
EMAIL ADDRESS (if it’s not the one you’re using)
to PETER at linkedmusicians@gmail.com
and he’ll get you registered ASAP. then he’ll send you an
e-mail with your password.
this is the new forums address

Home

When I 1st logged in my username ran together and was lower case so it looked like this oldjoad.
A lot of folks from the Cakewalk forum have already started showing up so I hope to see you there..

I’m starting to sign new people up using a mix of upper and lower case characters. Historically, usernames couldn’t be changed, but I found a plugin that allows me to change usernames, so I will be changing yours and others to title case.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by peter.

Vst0nE wrote:

Thank you very much Peter, happy to be here, appreciate

I’m glad to have you here.

That thread tells you everything. After I made a total of one comment stating that Jonathan Sasor owed Cakewalk Forum users an apology for berating them for asking if BandLab had ruled out the possibility of offering a perpetual license, first Sasor told me that the people that annoyed him didn’t include me. I replied that it doesn’t matter, that kind of behavior is simply wrong and I can’t support a brand where it’s acceptable for their employees to treat customers poorly. Not long after that I ended up getting suspended for a post in Larry’s thread for updates for a DAW where I asked if the new forum policy permitted a forum user to make head by head comparisons with other DAWs or if that would be censored. That was a 5 day suspension for that post and, like Larry, all of my posts then had to be personally read by Sasor before being posted. The next post I made — which I wrote realizing that Sasor would read it, so I wrote it very carefully, it didn’t matter I was banned. It was simply replying to a question asked in a thread by El Diablo wondering if Larry was okay and even featuring a song he wrote worrying if Larry was okay. I have had PMs with El Diablo and knew some personal things about him and wanted to ensure him that Larry was okay. So I posted that Larry is fine, he — and I — just don’t agree with the new Cakewalk Forum policies and are posting elsewhere. That got me a lifetime ban, although in my correspondence with Ashwin — BandLab’s social media guy — he’s told me that BandLab HQ is aware of the problems with their “legacy forums” and I should “be patient” as the company is letting their software tech team handle it and they’re not necessarily savvy with dealing with the public. I asked isn’t hostility towards your customers a violation of the company’s ethics? Why isn’t a manager involved. I let him know that BandLab exposed my personal customer data more than a dozen times over the years and some of that information remains public. He told me that he’d get it taken care of but never did, so I requested that my data be deleted. He said he would — it’s the law in many US states, such as California — but he never delivered on his promise.

If you look at that thread, people are posting links to other forums, affiliate marketing scheme sites, for profit sites…but there was no problem with any of that until LiikedMusicians was mentioned and then it was promptly censored. Our own  @fleer was among the people who posted a link to here. But it was gone in a heartbeat and after that, the thread was locked. I don’t think it takes a lot of detective work to see that Sasor has some kind of weird vendetta against me for asking him to apologize for berating forum users. While it’s not surprising for an indie developer forum to engage in that — and much worse behavior — it is surprising to see a midsize brand owned by a billionaire engaging in that kind of behavior. You don’t expect mid size brands to be so juvenile, petty and mean-spirited.  It’s one thing to have an employee with an anger management problem, but letting that employee be the public face of the brand, it makes me want to write the kind of articles I used to write years ago. It’s not just bad ethics, it’s profoundly dumb. There’s no upside for BandLab to let Jonathan Sasor destroy their brand image — except for the possibility that BandLab just doesn’t care about the older demographic that uses the forum, which is what I expected, but that was confirmed in the responses I had from Ashwin.

Anyhow, I appreciate everyone who tried to get the word out and don’t give up on PMing people and letting them know that they can just send an email with their first and last name and desired username to me at linkedmusicians AT Gmail dot c@m and I’ll get them registered. But the Deals (sub)Forum is clearly toast and I didn’t do it. Jonathan Sasor and even more, BandLab did it by even when given a heads up about their employees bad behavior towards customers doing absolutely nothing to fix the situation. Inexcusably bad management practices. I’ve always found that billionaire trust fund kids are better at buying up businesses than running them.

@superrabbit I plan to update the questions everyone can complete for their records to add more DAWs. But I still use CbB, although I’m planning to update my Studio One Pro 3 to the latest version and waiting for Black Friday. I also know of one user here who uses the pre BandLab Sonar. I will do a poll in the next several weeks asking people what DAW they use, what sampler, OS, etc and will share the results with the community.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by peter.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by peter.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by peter.

antler wrote:

Looks like the community’s growing – 79 members at time of posting!

Yep, and that’s just from people telling others, without offering public registration. Even better, people are starting to post a little bit more. I wanted to do a number of things during this period:

1. Determine the functionality of the sire that the community wants.

2. Have real world tests of the site to figure out what works and what’s not ready for prime time.

3. Have time to set up some things behind the scenes that are not working as I’d like them to work and require adjustments and integration with two other companies systems (email service providers).

I think once the momentum picks up, we’ll see a lot more posting. People see empty forums and don’t feel inspired to post. People see others posting and enjoying themselves and are eager to join in. It’s challenging to get started and to maintain the pace. This is why I want to have a way to tag the Early Adopter Group members,  so as the site grows, we can always remember the folks who believed in this idea from the beginning. It’s also something that can provide a little more comfort if we introduce a buy / sell forum so that you can have a little more trust in the person you’re buying from or selling to.

I don’t know if any of you guys caught my post in the GROUPS, but last night in Cakewalk Sonar Facebook Group I’ve been in for probably a decade, someone posted about the censorship going on. I post in response and the group’s admin gives my post a like. The guy who made the original post likes my post makes a related comment and reply back. Out of nowhere, the Group admin lashes out at me sharing a really bizzaro world version that was clearly Jonathan Sasor — who along with BandLab’s CTO, is, I believe a member of that group. Now everyone is entitled to their opinion, although I’m never cool with inflammatory attack posts on people. But something more problematic was going on. There’s no way that group admin would have known that I (real name) was PavlovsCat. My guess is that Sasor or someone else had PMed him and that’s when he made an inflammatory attack. An the attack was really weird. He wrote “you burned your bridges with BandLab!” Burned my bridges with a software company I’m a customer of? That’s like saying, I burned my bridges with McDonald’s when I said the BIg Mac isn’t really that good. But the underlying serious problem is the breech of my privacy. Sasor or another BandLab employee told this group admin that story and that I’m PavlovsCat. That’s problematic.

So, I’ve shared that I’ve been emailing with BandLab’s social media guy, Within an hour of that going on, he sends me an email. I haven’t had any conversations with him since last week. The timing was odd. Was he PMing with the Cakewalk Facebook Group guy telling him a BS version of why I was banned and that I was really PavlovsCat? Ashwin and I have had a friendly series of emails. Unsatisfying ethically from my perspective. Ashwin acknowledges that the behavior by the tech folks running the “legacy forums” isn’t what it should be and urges me to be patient — after the software QC guy running their forums gave me a lifetime ban when I didn’t violate a single Forums policy?  Strange.

So I offered Ashwin the opportunity to join this group and speak to BandLab users. If I led digital marketing and the social media manager told me he just had that offer, I’d tell him to get on it ASAP. But I also know from Ashwin’s statements that BandLab doesn’t really care about the older demographic (old) that we’re a part of. They’re trying to reach a much younger audience, the kind that uses BandLab.com.

On a side note, BandLab’s irresponsible data practices resulted in exposing my personal account information on probably two dozen occasions over the years — really just ridiculously irresponsible. So I put in a request to have all of my data removed from Cakewalk’s website, where they’ve revealed my real name numerous times when they exposed my private account info. I would urge others concerned about their private data to do the same. Weeks before I was banned, I knew I was being targeted by Jonathan Sasor, so I started to prepare for what was clearly coming — the guy operates at the level of a 5th grade bully, so it was all predictable. Although I was hoping a competent and at least quasi-ethical manager would step in and manage Sasor, that never came. So I anticipatted a banning — all of my posts, like cclarry’s posts had to be read by Sasor before being posted at that point and this guy’s ethics are completely absent. He had a vendetta against me when I publicly called him out for publicly berating BandLab customers / forum users for asking if perpetual licenses had been ruled out. I changed my username to LinkedMusicians weeks prior to the ban. After I left Sasor went into my record and changed my username to PavlovsCat — because the guy operates with no moral code or guidelines. It makes him extremely predictable. One thing I did do is remove my original with free libraries so I could recreate them here.

The post that resulted in Sasor banning me was replying to el diablo’s post and song worried that cclarry was okay. I posted that Larry is fine, he — and I — just didn’t agree with some of BandLab’s new policies and were posting elsewhere. It contained nothing that violated or came close to violating a BandLab policy. It didn’t reference any BandLab  employee. However, Sasor claimed the reason I was banned was that the post was hostile to BandLab employees. Again, it didn’t reference or even vaguely refer to any BandLab employees and I knew in advance that Sasor would have to approve it before posting, so why in the world would I write something I knew would never be posted? It’s just a really troubled junior employee with anger management issues who should never be in a customer-facing role. Now, I never wrote that or anything close to it at the Cakewalk Forum, but I can post it here and I’m 100 percent certain that’s exactly the issue. The fact that Sasor has lashed out at other Cakewalk Forums users just for referencing me or this site, is batsh*t crazy.  The fact that their management knows this and permits it to continue is a direct reflection of the poor ethics of the company. But Ashwin is welcome to come here and speak on behalf of BandLab if he chooses. I certainly would treat him with respect and let him have his say. I wouldn’t allow people to be disrespectful to him here and I don’t think any of you would be.  But I think a frank, honest conversation would be interesting. I would personally want to see BandLab issue a public apology to their Forum users before I could ever consider using the brand again. Otherwise, they’re just a really badly mismanaged company ran by a trust fund kid who clearly isn’t qualified to run the company and doesn’t possess the ethics or respect for customers to ensure any moral integrity by its managers. Ethical companies aren’t perfect, but they correct wrongs. they don’t given them a pass.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by peter.

On July 16, 2025 at 4:49 pm Milton SIca said

Concordo e ratifico tudo que o Pedro falou. Eu também fui banido. Uma empresa totalmente sem ética, mas não é só Sasor que pratica isso. Outro que pratica também isso é sua majestade, Noel.

Vergonha a empresa.

According to the Portuguese to English translation:

“I agree and confirm everything Pedro said. I was also banned. A completely unethical company, but Sasor isn’t the only one who does this. His Majesty Noel is another.

Shame on the company.”

On July 16, 2025 at 7:25 pm Fleer said

Pedro da man!

Hey, I’m still struggling with English! I did take 1 yr of HS Spanish—impressed? 😉

Of course, that was enough to know that post wasn’t in Spanish. Google took care of the rest.

Because Milton bought up the company being unethical, I will point something out that I could never point out at Cakewalk Forum.

Meng’s family’s business is infamous for using child labor as young as 8 in carrying heavy loads in very dangerous work environments. They’re also known for forced labor, discrimination and exploitation, forced evictions and exploitations of poor land owners for their plantation development. Wilmar is largely considered one of the most unethical large companies in operation today. They’re also infamous for suppressing reports about their practices — so Meng’s censorship on the Cakewalk Forums is very in line with his family business practices.

When people have posted that Meng was doing Cakewalk for Bandlab as some kind of altruistic act, the naivety was ridiculous. It’s like writing that freemium video games like Fortnite — which has made billions of dollars — are charity. No. The idea behind free versions of BandLab’s various software is to bring people into the BandLab ecosystem, where they buy various products and services. There’s nothing unethical about that, but the software being free isn’t some altruistic act. Meng has investors who’ve put millions into the company. It’s a for-profit business. The free software is part of a strategy to win over people to spend money using that software. Their problem is that Cakewalk by Bandlab didn’t attract enough customers, and the much older customers it attracts than BandLab software almost certainly haven’t spent money on loops, plugins, and services like the Gen Z and Gen Alpha BandLab users have.

The posts that keeping up Cakewwalk Forums was an altruistic act is also naive. The company keeps that up because it is a way to save on the costs of supporting customers and also a way to build/expand awareness for the company’s brands. That said, BandLab has been a disaster in social media and brand management of their Cakewalk brand and that forum. It’s a case study in what not to do. Their social media guy, Ash, explained to me in a series of emails — and I’ll be candid, the guy is dishonest as heck — that BandLab realizes that letting their software team manage it isn’t a great idea and made numerous remarks that make clear that BandLab doesn’t plan on either keeping the software team in charge of it long or is going to phase Cakewalk Forums out — which is constantly refers to as the company’s “legacy forums.” If you want to see a less micro-managed version of a Cakewalk Forum, go to their subreddit. They’re not as heavy-handed on censoring people there, so you see a lot of unedited opinions. The opinion of BandLab there is predominantly negative. It’s not pretty.

To anyone who thinks that’s the view of someone who is anti-business, I own a business. I was chosen as a thought leader in the profession by one of the biggest and most respected associations in the profession. I’m quoted as a marketing expert in hundreds of books, magazines, news publications, marketing magazines, etc. I just believe that it’s possible to do business and still be ethical and that the public should not be silent in the face of companies doing unethical things and making incredible human rights violations, like in the case of Meng’s family business. These are not small things, these are some of the worst business practices in the world. His BandLab practices are nothing compared to how his family makes most of their money. And yes, based on how he operates BandLab, I definitely don’t trust the guy.

If anyone wants to read up on his family business, it’s called Wilmar.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-30/wilmar-slammed-for-workers-rights-abuses/8078754